The effect of specific emotions on conformity
2020
Various factors can impact the level to which people conform to other’s. An
important, yet unanswered question is how emotions could influence
conformity levels. We predicted that specific emotions, which embody an
underlying appraisal of uncertainty about the world, would lead people to
feel more uncertain and subsequently more susceptible to others’ influence.
To test this hypothesis, participants (N = 78) induced to feel sad, happy or
angry had to perform a highly ambiguous numeric estimation task. In half of
the trials, participants were presented with additional estimates ostensibly
provided by three other individuals, and were left free to use or disregard
them when completing the task. As expected, participants in the sadness
condition (an emotion associated with a low certainty appraisal) showed more
conformity than those in the anger or happiness conditions (emotions
associated with a high certainty appraisal). Taken together, our findings
suggest that being in an emotional state characterized by uncertainty can
increase people’s sensitivity to others’ informational influences resulting
in a higher level of conformity.
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